Executive Summary
Despite years of digital investment, customers still overwhelmingly turn to phone calls and branch visits when problems arise, and they expect immediate resolution. However, outdated systems and siloed data often prevent front-line agents from delivering the speed and clarity customers demand.
Artificial intelligence offers exciting potential for scaling and accelerating support, but only if banks modernize the core systems that power those experiences. As many financial institutions face the need to upgrade core banking platforms, it’s critical to see these projects not just as IT investments, but as foundational enablers of customer satisfaction, loyalty, and long-term growth.
Support Is the Strategy: Why Fast Resolution Defines the Future of Banking CX
As digital banking moves faster and customer expectations keep rising, being able to resolve issues quickly is becoming a key way banks stand out.
Yet too often, banks and financial institutions continue to prioritize front-end enhancements while neglecting the deeper system readiness required to resolve customer issues quickly and effectively.
Recent U.S. consumer research highlights an important and perhaps surprising trend: customers still prefer speaking to a human when something goes wrong. Despite widespread adoption of apps, chatbots, and online tools, the top-ranked support channels remain phone calls and branch visits.
This raises a strategic question:
Are your systems built to resolve customer issues quickly or are they quietly undermining trust when it matters most?
Customer Expectations: Human Support Still Dominates
According to a recent study by Rivel, U.S. banking consumers prefer the following channels when they need quick help:
- Phone calls
- Branch visits
- Live chat
- FAQ pages
- Google searches
While customers may complete transactions digitally, their expectations for problem resolution still gravitate toward human interaction. This signals a clear imperative: traditional support channels are strategic differentiators when supported by the right systems.
The Core Pain Point - Time to Resolution
What frustrates customers is not the channel itself but the wait.
Slow response times, fragmented support experiences, and repeated handoffs all erode trust. And these inefficiencies are often rooted in:
- Outdated core systems
- Poorly integrated customer data
- Limited real-time visibility
- Inconsistent agent tools across channels
Even highly skilled agents can only do so much when the systems behind them are slow, siloed, or incomplete.
AI Can Amplify Service If the System Is Ready
Artificial Intelligence is making real inroads into banking support, with promising results. Institutions are increasingly using AI to:
- Power self-service bots for routine questions
- Support agents with real-time recommendations
- Summarize conversations and automate follow-up
- Analyze sentiment and prioritize issues
AI only works when the data is structured, integrated, and accessible. Disconnected or legacy systems dramatically limit AI’s impact. Without clean, unified data and real-time access even advanced tools fall short of expectations, and customer experience suffers.
AI is an amplifier. It scales what’s already working and exposes what isn’t.
Core System Upgrade: The CX Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight
Core banking upgrades are often viewed as internal operations projects. But they are increasingly pivotal to customer experience transformation.
Modern core systems enable:
- Unified customer records across departments and channels
- Real-time account and interaction data
- Integrated support tools and escalation workflows
- Agile connections with AI platforms and analytics engines
Elevate Support as a Brand Experience
Customer support is a strategic pillar of brand value, retention, and growth.
Banks and credit unions should treat support as a front-line differentiator by:
- Investing in modern core and CRM systems
- Equipping agents with real-time, contextual information
- Layering AI to accelerate, not replace, human interaction
- Designing experiences around resolution speed, not just channel availability
Great support experiences don’t happen by accident, they are architected from the inside out.
While digital interfaces continue to evolve, the real battleground for loyalty lies behind the screen: in the systems, workflows, and data integrations that empower agents and support AI.
Proven Results, Real Impact
Superior’s Technical Assistance Center (TAC) has helped more than 70,000 treasury users navigate everything from RDC conversions and core system upgrades to wire and ACH transitions.
The results speak for themselves:
- 98% satisfaction in post-project surveys
- Frequent praise for the team’s calm, helpful, and knowledgeable support
In a recent core conversion for a regional bank, the TAC team helped segment users by complexity. High-value commercial clients got dedicated, one-on-one training, while others used a custom-built self-service experience. The results?
- A sharp drop in support calls after launch
- 100% user satisfaction with the transition
Keeping Customers at the Center of Every Change
System upgrades don’t have to mean stress and confusion. With the right support, they can actually strengthen customer relationships, boost adoption, and build long-term trust.
That’s exactly what Technical Assistance Center is designed for.
Whether you're moving to a new core system, updating RDC tools, or upgrading wire and ACH capabilities, TAC helps you make the transition smooth and keeps your customers at the center every step of the way.
Explore Technical Assistance Center or book a call with one of our specialists to learn how we can support your next transformation before, during and after go-live.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is Superior’s Technical Assistance Center (TAC)?
Technical Assistance Center (TAC) is a specialized team that supports institutions through complex technology transitions such as core banking conversions or major system upgrades. TAC focuses on minimizing disruption, resolving escalations quickly, and ensuring support staff remain fully equipped to serve customers during high-change periods.
2. How does AI improve banking customer support?
AI enhances banking support by automating simple inquiries, helping agents work faster, and enabling more personalized, data-driven interactions. AI-powered tools can triage issues, provide contextual suggestions, and even analyze tone or urgency, all of which help reduce resolution times.
3. Why do customers still prefer phone and branch support?
Despite digital convenience, customers turn to phone and in-person channels when issues are sensitive, complex, or urgent. These channels are perceived as more reliable and human-centered particularly in high-trust scenarios like fraud, service errors, or account disruptions.
4. What does “system readiness” mean in a financial institution context?
System readiness refers to a financial institution’s ability to deliver consistent, fast, and effective service through integrated platforms, real-time data access, and agile support processes. It ensures both AI tools and human agents have what they need to resolve issues on first contact.
